A thread to discuss how ****ed up America is. (No Posts About The Wall)

Watching CNN and Fox both zeroing in on the Vegas shooter's "motivation' and ignoring the elephant in the room is pretty scary, and implies some sort of intellectual disconnect.

I'm sitting there thinking, wtf does it matter? Is it likely to be any different from all the other daily mass shootings in the place? How can any sane person sit there yapping about what some nutcase sees as a "motive" to slaughter his fellow Americans like hogs?

They're trying for find a reason for something that's by definition, unreasonable, and probably hoping it's a terrorist act so they don't have to address their own culpability I guess.

3 days ago - Police identified 64-year-old Stephen Paddock as shooter in the deadly Las Vegas shooting at the Route 91 Harvest festival. ... "We have to establish what his motivation is first,"

"Yet there is so far no evidence to support the idea that Paddock was mentally ill, and his brother said he didn’t know of any. Besides, the idea of a link between gun violence and mental illness is, at the very least, probably exaggerated in the public imagination."

"Police have not released a motive for the attack and did not immediately call the shooting a terrorism incident. Las Vegas Metropolitan Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said Stephen Paddock did not leave behind any notes or indications as to why he attacked the concertgoers."
"We have to establish what his motivation is first," Lombardo said when responding to a question about why the shooting hasn't been labeled a terrorism incident. "There are motivating factors associated with terrorism other than a distraught person just intending to cause mass casualty. Before we label with that, it will be a matter of process."

I grew up in CO and thought it was strange that people from other countries didn't have drills for armed intruders. We had to lock the doors, turn off the lights and all hide in a part of the room not visible from the glass. Then someone would bang on the door and we had to try and stay calm.

Instead of making sure people don't have automatic weapons, America just hopes that hiding in a locked room will be good enough.

It's the price you pay for having believers that follow the literal belief that the US constitution as it is is exactly how the founding forefathers intended it to be. Here's a Huff Post article describing some of the issues (from a clearly Dem leading agenda) but a summary of the issue none the less.

I ascribe to the constitution being a living document as someone who has studied US civics at an academic level but there are the conventional Repubs who will scream till their blue in the face that the constitution is dead, written and slated exactly as it was mean to be some 230 years later.

I am also a pragmatist who believes it is indefensible to believe in a literalist interpretation of the constitution but there are nut jobs in red states who will scream till they are blue in the face that if its not in the constitution it shouldn't be the law of the land.

Welcome to America in a nut shell. Here's the right wing disinformation perspective that Faux Snooze supporters would be brought to attention with for comparison

The fact that the red states and the NRA have been in control of gun laws for quite some time now doesn't help with the issue. The resulting quagmire is people who are bought out already and unwilling to do what's nescessary. Real gun control wont come about at least until the dems gain control of both houses again.

Of course in the mean time everyone ignores the elephant in the room of Marbury v. Madison which started this whole debate while the majority of the founding fathers were still alive.

The Marbury v. Madison decision expanded the power of the Supreme Court in general, by announcing that the 1789 law which gave the Court jurisdiction in this case was unconstitutional. Marbury thus lost his case, which the Court said he should have won, but, in explaining its inability to provide Marbury the remedy it said he deserved, the Court established the principle of judicial review, i.e., the power to declare a law unconstitutional

did you all read the piece in the Herald where because all mass shooters are losers, psychos or mentally ill and are men ( ignoring the 3 women ) , the solution is to not allow any american male any gun licenses ?

"Losers, loners and lunatics are all behind the mass shootings bringing America to its knees, and they're almost all men, so why not just stop granting firearms licences to male persons, Candace Sutton asks."

did you all read the piece in the Herald where because all mass shooters are losers, psychos or mentally ill and are men ( ignoring the 3 women ) , the solution is to not allow any american male any gun licenses ?

"Losers, loners and lunatics are all behind the mass shootings bringing America to its knees, and they're almost all men, so why not just stop granting firearms licences to male persons, Candace Sutton asks."

When Rebecca Wright on One News interviewed that gun shop owner, and he cites the 2nd amendment saying "The military has these kinds of weapons, so why shouldn't we?" - made me laugh; by that reasoning, members of the public should also have legal access to grenades, rocket launchers, drones etc, if the intent is to overthrow a dodgy government.

Such a flimsy argument.

If the NRA are going to contribute millions upon millions of dollars to Trumps campaign, which they did right at the very start when everyone thought Trump standing for PotUSA was a joke, there's no way in hell he's going to do anything to upset them.

I love how bump stocks are a) legal in the first instance and b) now selling out due to fears they'll be banned.

The only reason you need a bump stock is to turn a semi-auto into an effectively full auto. WTF America, why do you think you need full auto fire? Are you planning on laying down suppressing fire when the government sieges your compound or something?

I love how bump stocks are a) legal in the first instance and b) now selling out due to fears they'll be banned.

The only reason you need a bump stock is to turn a semi-auto into an effectively full auto. WTF America, why do you think you need full auto fire? Are you planning on laying down suppressing fire when the government sieges your compound or something?

did you all read the piece in the Herald where because all mass shooters are losers, psychos or mentally ill and are men ( ignoring the 3 women ) , the solution is to not allow any american male any gun licenses ?

"Losers, loners and lunatics are all behind the mass shootings bringing America to its knees, and they're almost all men, so why not just stop granting firearms licences to male persons, Candace Sutton asks."

Should've said it was usually white men for extra popcorn. Anyway it's just pointing out double standards

I'll be in Vegas at the start of next year, for one of the biggest related industry events - SHOT SHOW.
It'll be a blast like always, but it's going to be interesting to see what happens over those few days and in the couple months leading up to it after this attack.

I find the motivation question dumb. It's pretty clear that the guy wanted to know what it felt like to mow down a crowd of people with a machine gun and he found out

And maybe he just really hated country music and people who liked it. But yeah, I agree, I presume he'd gotten himself into some sort of shit, and wanted to go out with a bang. Or several magazines worth of bang.

did you all read the piece in the Herald where because all mass shooters are losers, psychos or mentally ill and are men ( ignoring the 3 women ) , the solution is to not allow any american male any gun licenses ?

A spokeswoman for the Office of Personnel Management, which manages federal employees, told the AP that the suspect, 64-year-old Stephen Paddock, was an IRS agent from 1978 to 1984.
Before that, Paddock worked as a mail carrier from 1976 to 1978, the AP reported. He graduated from California State University, Northridge in 1977. He also worked as a defense contractor in the late 1980s.

Another question you might want to ask. If you look at the website flightaware.com, and search a tail number, in this case N5343M you will see that the N number belongs to a SR 20 that at one time it was registered to Stephen C Paddock of Mesquite TX and Henderson NV. Our shooter. You will also see that it is currently registered to a company out of Roanoke VA named Volant LLC. A company that works with the "Defense/Intelligence" community per their website. Wait it gets better. The registration is listed as active. Don't worry that it shows the last flight for the Aircraft 3 years ago. They only show the flight when a flight plan is filed. Flightaware pulls their data directly from the FAA registration database, so it should be accurate correct? Now the interesting part, if you go to faa.gov and put the same tail number into their search engine N5343M, you will find that the FAA says the n-number is inactive, and the last registration was a C152 (different aircraft) to some guy in San Diego CA. And no mention of the current registration by Volant LLC, or Mr Paddock. The FAA database is updated every business day at midnight. So, it looks like someone ether scrubbed the FAA database and forgot or didn't know that flightaware posted the same info, or someone at flightaware is playing a big trick on everyone and putting false information in their database. All I know is the name of Stephen C Paddock now has something in common with a spook outfit. Interesting.

Former fed, curious financial history, and now aircraft that trace to a Virginia-based LLC with Defense/intelligence ties.